Depending who you ask and what media you consume, you will probably get a lot of mixed information about vegans.

The "Veganism-Will-Kill-You" Stereotype

Some people will say that vegans are dying of tons of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, that veganism is an eating disorder, that vegans are dumb, hippie, freeloading, communist tree-huggers.

The "Vegans-Are-Fitness-Models" Stereotype

On the other hand, some people will say that vegans are eating the healthiest diet possible, that they are super slim, fit and healthy, and drink green smoothies every day before their 5-mile run.

The thing is, both and neither could be true. Vegans are a diverse group of people and there are both unhealthy and healthy ways to be vegan. Some are junk food vegans who do not care much about what goes into their body as long as it does not contain animal products, some are fitness and health junkies who have eliminated oil and salt completely from their diets. We all come to the vegan lifestyle for different reasons.

Recently, there has been a rise in popularity in the fitness world to become vegan. But veganism is not a diet craze. It is a lifestyle that one might turn to due to allergies, poor digestion, wanting to lose weight, wanting to lower cholesterol, or other health related reasons. (Though if it has no connection to animal rights, they are technically plant-based because veganism is fundamentally an animal rights movement and extends beyond diet.) It is important to understand, however, that someone who becomes vegan for better digestion might still not fit your idea of a vegan. There are overweight vegans, vegans with food allergies (dairy, gluten, soy, etc.), vegans who eat more junk food that you would ever have imagined.

I am neither dying from a lack of a nutrient nor am I a model of perfect health.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I consider myself a pretty average, normal 19-year-old girl. I am just a regular person that is only subjected to these stereotypes. Stereotypes serve as shortcuts to generalize groups of people, often stemming from some amount of truth. Most people have not had many encounters with vegans, so they do not really have any reason or knowledge to discredit these stereotypes.

This is of course problematic. As Chimanda Adichié states in her Ted Talk, "The Danger of a Single Story," she explains that the problem with a single story is not that it is necessarily untrue, but that it becomes the only story. The issue with stereotypes about who vegans are is that people who are potentially open to the idea of living more ethically, possibly more healthfully, could think that they can only be vegan if they have dreadlocks and spend hours meditating in nature or if they are obsessed with fitness and healthy eating.

But veganism does not exclude anyone who is open to living more ethically. That is our only unifying quality. We are otherwise a group of every kind of person imaginable.